Maggie could still feel the phone in her hand. Her eyes could still move and they went to the glowing screen, the open text to Matt. Her thumb. She was having a hard time controlling it, but it moved. She managed to tap on the photo reel. Up popped all of her photographs. The last one, the couple. The man in her room! She tried to tap it, but her thumb wasn’t listening.

She felt far away. She told her thumb to move again, and it bounced on the screen. The photo of the couple was attached to the text to Matt. She just needed to press send.

The man ran over to her. Just before he grabbed the device out of her hand, she thought she heard the swish of a departing text.

The man cursed to himself when he examined the phone.

She was drifting.

The man lifted her arm and then let it go. It fell like a rag doll. He crouched down, looked into her pupils. He had a plain face, forgettable except for a scar that went from his nostril to his lip.

Maggie’s eyelids were heavy. She watched as the man took her water bottle and put it in a trash bag he was carrying. He was fiddling with her phone, connecting it to some type of handheld device. Then he wiped it down with a rag, positioned it back in her frozen hand.

The terror left her.

She felt warm and calm and loved and proud.

We did it, Daddy. We did it.

CHAPTER 63

OLIVIA PINE

BEFORE

The elation at uncovering the truth, that her son wasn’t a murderer, the forgiveness from her husband for her infidelity, the pride in her daughter for never giving up, were overcome by a pain in Liv’s chest.

“I feel strange,” she said to Evan.

Evan examined her. His face turned to concern.

Her eyes closed. “I’m not—” When she opened them, she was on the floor. She tried to get up, but her limbs were frozen.

Her head fuzzy, she saw Evan stooped forward on the dining room table, his water bottle on its side, dripping onto the floor.

She didn’t understand what was happening. She tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t oblige.

Liv tried to reach out for her husband. But nothing would move. It was as if she were buried in sand.

Her thoughts were muddled. She started praying, but she didn’t know why. A blessing for Evan and each of her children.

She felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen, then a jolt of fear when she saw a pair of feet. The shoes were covered in surgical booties.

She was a puppet with its strings cut.

More darkness, then spots before her eyes.

Her thoughts floated away in the blue ocean. She looked at Evan again. Despite all of my mistakes, all of the grief, I would do it all over again.